Introduction to Bacon & the Art of Living

The story of bacon is set in the late 1800s and early 1900s when most of the important developments in bacon took place. The plotline takes place in the 2000s with each character referring to a real person and actual events. The theme is a kind of “steampunk” where modern mannerisms, speech, clothes and practices are superimposed on a historical setting.  Modern people interact with old historical figures with all the historical and cultural bias that goes with this.

---

The English Pig

February 1893

Dear Kids,

Travelling back from Dublin to Calne, Michael met us at the Royal Waterloo Hotel in Liverpool (1). It was great seeing him again and the first hour we recounted the events in South Africa around Minette and my engagement. He was out of town when we returned from Cape Town and John Harris received us at his house.

It was great seeing our old friend again. We grew very fond of his company and his obvious love for the subject is inspiring! We had much to tell him about our trip to Dublin, Dr Stamatis, the chance encounter with Stu and our lessons from the anatomy professor. After listening to our stories, Mike was disappointed that he could not accompany us to Dublin.

The Royal Hotel

The hotel where we stayed with Mike in Liverpool is an epic place in its own right. The area was originally called Crosby Seabank. Before 1815, the locals tell me that all there was out there were a few farms dotted along the coast and some fisherman villages pre 181.  Early in the 1800s, so the ever-informative Michael tells us, it gained a reputation amongst wealthy visitors for its beaches and clear water. This prompted the building of the Roya Hotel.

Construction started on Sunday 18 June 1815, the very day of the battle of Waterloo where the Duke of Wellington’s forces defeated Napoleon Boneparte. It effectively ended Napoleon’s rule as Emperor of France and marked the end of his Hundred Days return from exile.

The hotel was initially named the Crosby Seabank Hotel. On the first anniversary of the battle, it was renamed Royal Waterloo Hotel. The area grew in popularity and soon a railway line was laid and a station build and wealthy merchants and sea captains from Liverpool began to build homes there. Many of the street names given were associated with the battle and gradually the town became known as Waterloo.

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

After Minette and I shared our stories, the topic of discourse changed to the English pig. Mike felt that I still did not appreciate the importance of breeding in producing good bacon. He explained to me that the pig industry mostly situated in the south of England and as is the case today, followed on the heels of the dairy and the brewery industry.  Dairy farmers found that milk contains 20% whey proteins and 80% casein. Whey is a byproduct of the cheese industry. When milk is coagulated during the process of cheese making, whey is the leftover product and contains everything that is soluble from milk after the pH is dropped to 4.6 during the coagulation process. It is an excellent and inexpensive feed for pigs. The other very cheap source of food for pigs is brewery waste and a third source is an inferior grain that turns wheat that the farmer can not expect to get a good price for into high priced pork protein. 

As Mike was about to start telling the story, I quickly excused myself to grab my notebook. At the top of a new page I wrote the headline: The story of the English pig! Back in Calne, I was so mesmerised by the topic that I did much further reading on the subject. In this mail, I then supplement the information from Mike with what I found in the reading room at the Harris factory. Here is the story!

The story of the English pig!

Chinese vs English Pigs

It begins in China, many, many years ago. Wild boars (Sus Scrofa) from Europe and Asia roamed the land from antiquity. Around eight thousand years ago, pigs in China made a transition from wild animals to the farm. It was the creation of the domesticated pig (Sus scrofa domesticus or only Sus domesticus). They started living off scraps of food from human settlements. Humans penned them up and fed them which removed the evolutionary pressure they had as wild animals living in the forest. They were bred by humans instead of being left in the forests to breed naturally and to find for themselves. This led to an animal that is round, pale, short-legged, pot-bellied with traditional regional breeding preferences that persist to this day. (White, 2011)

Yu, et al (2013), reports that there are 88 indigenous breeds of pigs in China today. They investigated the origin and evolution of Chinese pigs using complete mitochondrial genomic sequences (mtDNA) from Asian and European domestic pigs and wild boars. “Thirty primer pairs were designed to determine the mtDNA sequences of, Xiang pig, Large White, Lantang, Jinhua, and Pietrain.” (Yu, 2013)

This is a great place to start because it not only speaks directly to our topic of pigs in China and their relationship with those in the West, but it also introduces us to very important concepts when you are talking about pig breeds.

The first new concept is that of phylogenetics. “Phylogenetics is the study of the evolutionary history and relationships among individuals or groups of organisms (e.g. species, or populations). These relationships are discovered through phylogenetic inference methods that evaluate observed heritable traits, such as DNA sequences or morphology under a model of evolution of these traits. The result of these analyses is a phylogeny (also known as a phylogenetic tree)—a diagrammatic hypothesis about the history of the evolutionary relationships of a group of organisms.” (Biology online. Retrieved 15 February 2013.) Yu and his coworkers investigated the phylogenetic status of Chinese native pigs “by comparing the mtDNA sequences of complete coding regions and D-loop regions respectively amongst Asian breeds, European breeds, and wild boars. The analyzed results by two cluster methods contributed to the same conclusion that all pigs were classified into two major groups, European clade and Asian clade.” (Yu, 2013)

A clade is “a grouping that includes a common ancestor and all the descendants (living and extinct) of that ancestor. Using a phylogeny, it is easy to tell if a group of lineages forms a clade. Imagine clipping a single branch off the phylogeny — all of the organisms on that pruned branch make up a clade.” (https://evolution.berkeley.edu)

It revealed that Chinese pigs were only recently diverged from each other and are distinctly different from European pigs. Berkshire was clustered with Asian pigs and Chinese pigs were involved in the development of Berkshire breeding. The Malaysian wild boar had distant genetic relationships with European and Asian pigs. Jinhua and Lanyu pigs had more nucleotide diversity with Chinese pigs although they all belonged to the Asian major clade. Chinese domestic pigs were clustered with wild boars in the Yangtze River region and South China.

In the West, the scavengers were treated differently than in China. There is evidence that they were initially exploited, as was the case in the far East, around 9000 to 10 000 years ago. The denser settlements of the Neolithic times in the fertile crescent did not pen the animals up but ejected them from their society. The pigs may have been a nuisance or competed with humans for scarce resources such as water. Genetic research shows that the first pig exploitation in Anatolia (around modern-day Turkey) “hit a dead end.” (White, 2011)  It failed to develop pig breeds that still exist today as was the case with pigs in China.

In contrast to pigs being shunned in the middle east and penned up and intensely farmed and manipulated through selective breeding as in China, the treatment of pigs in Europe was completely different which resulted in a particular set of characteristics. Various European populations, for example, developed techniques of feeding the pigs called mast feeding (Mast being the fruit of forest trees and shrubs, such as acorns and other nuts). Herds were pushed into abandoned forests to feed on beechnuts and acorns which are of marginal value to humans. (White, 2011)

The practice of pannage, as it is called, is the releasing of livestock-pigs in a forest, so that they can feed on fallen acorns, beech mast, chestnuts or other nuts. Historically, it was a right or privilege granted to local people on common land or in royal forests. Interestingly, it was the exact same technique practiced at the Cape at the time when the Colebrook sank and is one of the reasons why I doubt that the Kolbroek would have remained a homogenous pig breed if they were not taken in by a local farmer. The slave-hypothesis where the animals were kept in a confined space and fed by humans right from their arrival on African soil fits the scenario where slaves had to keep the animals under constant control in caves or at least, a small geographical area to avoid detection by the authorities who were looking to re-capture the slaves. The slaves did this, not only with pigs (which I assume) but also with other domesticated animals such as cattle (which we know for a fact).

The result of chasing animals into a forest to fend for themselves is that controlled breeding was very difficult, if not impossible. The pigs from the West remained long-legged, with ridges of bristles and residue tusks, keeping them fierce and agile like their wild ancestors as they continued to struggle against predators and the harshness of life in the wild. This correlates well with quotes I read from writers in South Africa (Green) who speaks about the fact that pigs that are chased into the wild to fend for themselves change back to the characteristics of their wild ancestors. He quotes a German, Richter, as reported by MacAdams that “pigs easily revert to wild state. . . and all over the world, there were droves living in forests and bush and raiding farms and plantations. They bred fast like guinea pigs, mastered the law of the wild and move silently about their destructive business. After years of this life, they lost their civilised look and developed large heads with long snouts and narrow, arched backs. They were far more alert than farm pigs and more ferocious. Richter declares that they were almost as intelligent as the great apes. They became hairier and regained the colour and shape of their wild ancestors with stripes on their sides.” (Green, 1968) Pliny said in Roman times that “a few generations can turn a thoroughly domesticated breed into a fierce feral animal.” (White, 2011)

As the contact of Europeans with China increased and the vigorous trade of previous centuries between these regions resumed, Chinese pig breeds and practices were both exported to Europe and England. The introduction of Chinese breeds into Europe and Brittain was precipitated by changes in population and deforestation which became precursors for globalization. By the early 1600s, sty rising was encouraged by a shortage in mast forests and some improved breeding followed, especially in southeastern England. The rapid expansion of London gave rise to an increased in pigs as urban scavengers. Brewery and dairy waste in this part of England became the first sources of concentrated fodder for pigs. Agriculture manuals started to appear that advocated using these to supplement mast or replacing it altogether as a quick and effective way of fattening pigs. In addition to these, potatoes from the Columbian Exchange became a lifeline for the family hog who lost access to pannage. (White, 2011)

New sty raised pigs from around cities like Leicestershire and Northamptonshire at the end of the 1600s and early 1700s, in conjunction with the rapid development of English agriculture, provided the first improved English breed, particularly around Leicestershire. These animals served the growing London market as well as the British navy for fresh and salted pork. These animals were rounder and fattened more quickly than the pigs from medieval times. (White, 2011)

Chinese breeding stock arrived in England in the midst of these developments. Studies of mitochondrial DNA suggest that the earliest exchange took place around 1700. Certainly not much earlier. “More detailed examination of European and Chinese haplotypes find two separate introductions, each from a different Chinese variety, the one ancestral to the large white and Berkshire and the other to the later Swedish Landrace, Duroc, and Welsh. All these share more genetic material than they do with traditional European pigs.”

“As early as the 1720s writers began to note the growing presence of a small black variety in England which appears to match contemporary descriptions of those Chinese and Southeast Asia pigs that had already excited the interest of travellers to the far East. The earliest definite statement that Chinese pigs had arrived in the West appears to come from the Swedish naturalist Osbeck writing in the 1750s, who compared them favourably with European scavenger varieties.” (White, 2011)

“It was the last years of the 1700s that provided the real breakthrough with the production of improved crossbreeds combining the larger frame of European pigs with the rounder body and faster weight gain of the Asian newcomers. By 1797 William Henry Hall’s New Encyclopedia notes how “the breed of pigs have been greatly improved, both in the harness of their nature and the goodness of their flesh, by the introduction of those commonly called Chinese, or Touquin.” (White, 2011)

The fourth edition Bylbeis’s General History of Quadrupeds in 1800 would expand its chapter on hogs to note how, “By a mixture of Chinese black swine with others of the large British breed, a kind has been produced that possesses many qualities superior to the original flock. They are very prolific, are sooner made fat than the larger kind, upon less provisions, and cut up, when killed, to more useful and convenient portions.” (White, 2011)

Implications of the Date for the Kolbroek Pigs

Marshall (1798) writes that when he visited Maidstone in 1790, some remains of the long white native breed of the Island were observable, in this part of it. The Berkshire, and the “Tun back,” — a variety of the Berkshire (which is not uncommon in Surrey), — were prevalent: also the Chinese; — with mixtures of the various sorts; but without any established breed, which the district could call it’s own.”

At this point I want to return to the story of the Kolbroek pigs of South Africa (Chapter 3: Kolbroek) The story that I heard and believe to be correct after much personal investigation is that the breed swam to shore at Cape Hangklip in the Cape Colony from the English East Indian ship, the Colbrooke when she sank on Tuesday, 24 August 1778. I believe that the pigs were picked up from at Gravesend in Kent from where she sailed from on 3 February 1778. I think that there is another possibility namely that another small herd of pigs, closely related to the pigs that became the Kolbroek in South Africa were similarly transported to New Zealand by Cook.

In our discussion, the development of these two groups of pigs which ended up in Africa and New Zealand could be from the cross between Chinese and English breeds at a time before the Colebrooke sailed for the Cape of Good Hope in 1778 and before the three visits of Cook to New Zealand, in 1769-70, 1773 and 1777.  The Marshall quote shows that both Chinese breeds and Chinese-English crosses were not only present in England, but in Kent in particular.  Marshall (1798) writes about the state of affairs regarding pork production in Maidstone, Kent, which is 25miles from Gravesend. This is the time of Cook’s first voyage (30 years after the sailing in 1768 on the HMS Endeavour) and the sailing of the Colebrook which, on the 3rd February sailed to Gravesend to load shot, copper, stores, gunpowder, wine, guns, corn, livestock, and military recruits. She set sail on the 8th March from the Downs in the company of three other vessels, the warship Asia, as well as the East Indiamen Gatton and the Royal Admiral, to call at Madeira for 43 pipes of wine. On the 26th of May, she sailed from Madeira for Bombay and China via the Cape of Good Hope where she sank, 3 months later.

Marshall observed at Maidstone, Kent,

a. various breeds; 
b. a few of the long white native breed of England.
c.  The Berkshire and a variety of the Berkshire called the "Turn back," common in Surrey, 
d. Chinese which he describes as "prevalent" and e. mixtures of the various sorts, also described as prevalent.

I have long suspected that the Kolbroek looks like an older version of the Berkshire!  Later, when I saw the Kune Kune of New Zealand, I thought the same as a possible link between the old Berkshire, the Kolbroek and the Kune Kune. If these pigs came from Gravesend, Kent, it could have been almost any of the various crosses that were found here, at this time.

This is the clearest statement we have on the state of pork production in Kent which is important in the considerations of how the Kune Kune could have arrived in New Zealand and the Kolbroek at the Cape of Good Hope.  More about that later.

Michael brought some sketches along to illustrate his point of the difference between the old English breeds from before the introduction of the Chinese breeds and the improved method of pig husbandry and the new English breeds.

The Old English Breed

Harris has a great sketch of an old English and old Irish pig.

All New Developments Takes Time to Settle In

Early breeders did not immediately find a market for the improved breeds which was done between old English sows with Chinese boars. From the offspring of these animals, the farmer will then select the ones with the character traits that are most desirable and the rest will become ham or bacon.

There were many common village pigs that were crossed with Chinese pigs. Wealthy landowners would buy the Chinese boar and “rent” him out to villagers on his property to fertilise their sows.  In this way, pigs from a village or a county developed similar characteristics.

The New English Breeds

-> Large White

Or Large Yorkshire Pig, as it used to be called.

-> Yorkshire Large, Middle, Small White

In the Harris reading room I came across an 1887 copy of the Agrarian History of Wales, where Messrs. Harris from Calne is quoted complaining that the pigs were often too fat for their purposes. There are references to Small Whites as “animated tubs of lard and Black Dorsets as roly-poly pigs. (Collins, 1887)

-> Suffolk

Also called Small Black, or Essex as it is called in the USA.

-> Berkshire

The most famous pig from England for years has been the Berkshire. It is said that businessmen drove the development of the Berkshire as opposed to lovers of pigs and pig breeds. Agents of wealthy businessmen in the US bought the animals based on their ability to do well at shows and not for any inherent functionally beneficial characteristics. The buyers were looking for pigs that are short, turned up snout, a heavy jowl, thick neck, wide shoulders, and a fat back.

The breed has formally existed from around 1780 and before this time, the animals were known to exist and have been bred in this region in England. The colour and markings of the Berkshire show close association with the wild boar.

A breeders association targeted a longer, straight back animal as opposed to the more arched backs of the original Berkshires. There is a great description by a man called Lawrence who, in 1790 gave the following account of the old Berkshire pigs. “It was long and crooked snouted, the muzzle turning upwards; the ears large, heavy and inclined to be pendulous; the body long and thick, but not deep; the legs short, the bone large, and the size very great.” (Richardson, 1857) This was not the best animal that the farmers wanted to breed by any means, but it was a marked improvement on the old English pigs that were described as “gaunt and rugged.” (Richardson, 1857) Developing the breed through cross-breeding with the Chinese and Siamese pigs resulted in an animal that Lawrence describes in 1790 as “already a great improvement from the old Berkshires“. He describes the 1790 animals as “lighter both in head and ear, shorter and more compactly formed, with less bone, and higher on the leg.” (Richardson, 1857) By 1875, Richards reports that “the breed has been since still further improved by judicious crossing; it still has long ears inclining forward, but erect, is deep in the body, with short legs, small bone, arrives early at maturity, and fattens easily and with remarkable rapidity.”

One of the men responsible for great developments of the breed in the mid-1800s was Richard Astley, Esq. of Oldstone Hall. Another important breeder of this time was an Irishmen, Mr. Sherrard. In crossing with the Berkshire, he used the Neapolitan pig or the improved Essex pig which is the same as the Neapolitan. This cross resulted in “a long body, a handsome head, a well-skinned animal which is a rapid grower”.

The Siamese and Chinese cross were important for the breed. The Chinese hog went by many different names. The Siam and the Chinese proper were two important variants of the Chinese hog in the 1700s and 1800s. The main difference between the two relates to colour. The Siamese is black and the Chinese, white. There were, however, great varieties, and one could get black Chinese and white Siamese hogs. Importantly, Chinese hogs are small. “The body is a near-perfect cylinder; the back slopes from the head, and is hollow, while the belly, on the other hand, is pendulous, and in a fat specimen almost touches the ground. The bone is small, the legs fine and short.” (Richardson, 1857) Both the Chinese and Siamese are good feeders and matures early. The Chinese are almost identical to the Portuguese and many people thought that the Portuguese breed of the 1800s is actually the Chinese proper.

Trow-Smith (1959) summarises the state of play well when he writes, that “by reason of the introduction of direct and indirect Chinese blood into British breeds very few of the swines of the late eighteenth century had any degree of stability in character. Those which were contemporarily notable have now ceased to exist or become of little importance, and the leading breeds of today were then barely distinguishable. . . The ubiquitous Berkshire, the first British breed of pig to achieve national fame, to win a national distribution, and to exercise a national influence. At the end of the eighteenth century, it was predominantly of a sandy red-spotted type, prick-eared, with no very marked dish of face, and renowned for its early maturity. In the following three decades the Berkshire seems to have been given its present appearance of a black pig with white extremities and dished face by the work of Lord Barrington, who probably had used Neapolitan blood in the improvement – or, at any rate, the alteration – of this breed. The sandy reddish colour still emerges occasionally in crosses from the modern Berkshire.” (Trow-Smith, 1959)

“After Barrington had to a large degree fixed the new mainly black type, the older red Berkshire continued to be found unimproved in the Midlands in considerable numbers and began to assume a Midland name and to be known as the Tamworth.” If one wants to know what the Berkshire looked like at the beginning of the early 19th century, look at the Tamworth of the 1950s. (Trow-Smith, 1959)

Tamworth

One of the oldest of the English pigs, extensively bred in Leicestershire, Staffordshire, and Northamptonshire and in some of the adjacent counties is the Tamworth. It is native to the midland counties where there are lots of oak tree forests. They were driven into the forests for autumn and early winter. When the forests were closed off and converted to arable land, farmers opted for a quieter pig variety and one that fattens more readily. (Sinclair, 1879)

The change was accomplished by crossing long-snouted, prick-eared sandy and grey with black spots pigs with pigs having a strong infusion of Neapolitan blood. Many also used the white pig. Bakewell did, through inbreeding and selection, accomplished in both breeds a more delicate disposition and an animal that is more easily fattened.  He termed the white Berkshire breed. (Sinclair, 1879)

The result of the mixture was a plum-pudding or the black, white and sandy pig. In certain districts of Staffordshire and adjoining counties, the breeders of these mahogany coloured pigs took considerable pain by selection to increase the feeding properties of their pigs without losing their distinctive colour. (Sinclair, 1879)

The pigs were not particularly quick feeders but they were prolific and when well fattened, furnished a splendid carcass of pork nicely intermixed with lean.  (Sinclair, 1879) They were later crossed with pigs that render them more suitable for bacon production.

English Purebreeds

The following pure breeds were acknowledged in England at this time.

• Berkshire
• Tamworth
• Small Black
• Yorkshire – divided into Large, Middle, Small White

(Sinclair, 1879)

Development of the New Engish Breeds

In Loudon’s Encyclopedia of Agriculture are a set of engravings that gives us a glimpse of what the transition would have been like. The first edition appeared in 1825.

Compare it with the following English Breeds.

Loudon refers to the Berkshire as a “small breed” which was probably the first character quality to achieve better fattening and maturing quality (i.e., reducing the size of the animal improves its ability to gain weight and mature).

The sow above shows the effect of crossing the Berkshire with a Chinese pig and better feeding. The effects of persistent improvements on these crossed animals can be seen from the two pictures below, figure 20 and 21 from Harris.

Compare these with the picture of the old English pigs given right at the top of the letter. Also compare it with this drawing of a Chinese Sow, given by Harris.

Boars of the improved Berkshire-Chinese cross, after the breed has been established were used to cross with the large old Berkshire sows. This was considered a less violent cross and was more beneficial than the direct use of pure Chinese pigs.

I wondered how one would approach it if you desire to create a certain look or particular qualities in a pig.  Which one would have the biggest influence on what? The boar or the sow?  the ever-informative Michael had the answer.

Selection of a Boar – a few pointers

The boar exercise the greatest influence on the “external points of the joint produce”, then does the sow.  In the question I asked above, one will then select the boar by looking at its outer characteristics in the first place.  What is the outward “look” that you desire in your animal?  The sow is said to influences the internal portions to a far greater degree.

Other good pointers to look for in a boar is its sexual organs.  These must be well developed is an indication of vigour.  The quality that you do not want in a boar is a vicious and bad temperament.  Also, select a boar that was part of a large litter.  A large boar should not be preferred to a small one as large boars seldom last long. (Sinclair, 18970)

Selecting a Sow – a few pointers

A few comments about a sow to give us an inkling of the different functions of a boar and sow in creating a particular pig.  The sow is responsible to furnish her offspring with the internal arrangements to enable the complete animal to readily convert its food so that the pig grows rapidly, fattens quickly and proves itself a profitable hog.

Some breeds produce what is sometimes called a big roomy sow.  They are “flat-sided; their loins are “weak”.  They are often admired by people who know nothing about breeding pigs.  These poor animals have difficulty getting up once they lie down.  An evenly-made compact sow with quarters long, wide and deep, and on short legs will rear far more pigs and at much less cost than will one of the large kind.

The important points to look for in an ideal sow, are the same as what is required in a boar.  Particularly, its temperament must be gentle. A well-formed udder is of the greatest importance and she should have no fewer than 12 teats.  15 is better!  They should be spaced evenly.

Possible Supply Points for the English Navy:  The Kolbroek and the Kune Kune Question

As for my own exposure to pig breeding, it is confined to the Kolbroek and later, the Kune Kune from New Zealand. I discussed the tradition about the origin of the breed in the Cape Colony with Michael who had had very interesting insights.  Large scale pig breeding or rearing has been associated with the dairy industry for many years. There is a report from 1830 which states that keeping pigs “especially valuable to those persons whose other occupations furnish a plentiful supply of food at a trifling expense; as the keepers of dairies, brewers, millers, etc., the very refuse of whose customary produce will serve to keep a considerable number of these useful animals.” (White, 1977)

One of the places where pig industries developed for exactly the reasons as mentioned, is Wiltshire. Daniel Defoe commented in his work, Tour Through the Whole Island of Great Britain (1720) on the huge volumes of bacon sent from Wiltshire to London.  He wrote, “this bacon is raised in such quantities here, by reason of the great dairies . . the hogs being fed with the vast quantity of whey, and skim’d milk, which so many farmers have to spare, and which must, otherwise, be thrown away.” (Defu, 1720)

I expressed interest in the state of pig farming from Kent, since, as I suppose, the pigs that made it onto the Colebrook at the end of the 1700s and swam ashore at Koge Bay at Cape Hangklip in the Cape Colony, came from Kent, there should be evidence of large pig farming in this county or did the pigs come from London.  Michael referred me to one author he managed to locate which possibly spoke to the issue, Pehr Kalm.  Pehr, also known as Peter Kalm, was a botanist, naturalist, and agricultural economist and an explorer.   He wrote in 1748 that “in Kent the farmers generally have no more pigs than they require for their own use so that they seldom come to sell any of them; but in and near London, the Distillers keep a great many, often from 200 to 600 head, which they feed with the lees, and anything that is over from the distillery; and after these animals have become fat enough, they are sold to the butcher at a great profit.” (Kitchen, 1940)

This being said, Henry Mayhew reports in his “The Morning Chronicle Survey of Labour and the Poor: The Metropolitan Districts, Volume 6”, (1981), with writing from 1849 and 1850, “A great many sheep and other cattle are slaughtered at outside places (outside London and the Smithfield market), such as Gravesend. They are bought at the farmers in the neighbourhood, or selected from droves on their way to London.” He later includes pigs in his calculations. This statement shows that livestock was bought from local farmers as opposed to receiving them from London.  It mitigates the theory that the pigs from Gravesend were bought from local farms as opposed to being driven from London.

A second fact lends tremendous credence to this theory. The many woodlands and forests in Kent would have been ideal for pig farming. There are reports from early 1800 that there were plenty of pigs in the Weald, located just a short distance from Gravesend. (remarks about Goudway) (Aslet, 2010)  (2) It, therefore, seems plausible that the pigs for the Navy and the English East Indian Company was produced from Kent and not from London. This will, therefore, include the pigs brought to South Africa on the Colebrook as well as the pigs that Captain Cook took with him to New Zealand on his first voyage. Both voyages started by taking livestock onboard at Gravesend in Kent.

The clearest statement about pork production in Kent comes to us from Marshall (1798) who writes about the state of affairs regarding pork production in Maidstone, Kent, which is 25miles from Gravesend.  This is the time of Cook’s first voyage (30 years later) and the sailing of the Colebrook. Here, he observed a. various breeds; b. a few of the long white native breed of England. c.  The Berkshire and a variety of the Berkshire called the ” Tun back,” common in Surrey, d. Chinese which he describes as “prevalent” and e. mixtures of the various sorts, also described as prevalent.

The evidence suggests that there were after all, not only pigs for private consumption in Kent which, one must remember, is a large county. The writing was done at a time when statistics and information on matters such as the pig population were not available and each writer’s impressions were limited to small geographical locations in Kent and could not possibly have been absolute, verified factual statements. Secondly, once one accepts the premise that there could have been, as some authors seem to imply, large herds of pigs in Kent from which live animals were supplied to the Navy and English East Indian Company. Barrel pork, we know, would have been bought from London, firms like C & T Harris or imported from one of the colonies or Ireland. We found no evidence of large curing and “pork salting” industry in Kent, at this time.

There is another important possibility that comes up. We have a statement that farmers in Kent had only enough pigs for their own consumption. We know that there were a lot of pigs in the woodlands and have a description from Marshall on the kind of pigs found in Kent and in Maidstone in particular which is very close to Gravesend. What theory would adequately take all these factors into account in a way that is honest and flows from the facts? I propose that Marshall gives us a clear statement that very close to Gravesend, all the genetic ingredients were present for the creation of the cross that would become the Kolbroek and the Kune Kune. We know that large landowners or brewers would have had large pig herds as was the case in Wiltshire. The statements of the large pig population in London and the fact that many labourers in Wiltshire kept pigs does not mean that there were no large pig farmers in Wiltshire. By inference, the same logic will be true in Kent. It is a possibility that pigs were not procured from small farmers but from a farmer or a landlord or a business that had a large herd of pigs and the genetic material available in Kent would have been reflected in such a herd. That this source supplied the live pigs to Gravesend and that this practice was maintained from the 1760s all the way through to the end of the 1700s. A single source for the Kune Kune and the Kolbroek, located close to Gravesend is a real possibility and will explain the similarities between these two breeds perfectly!

The question is now if there is a president for such large pig farmers around Gravesend. As it turns out, there is an example of such a large operation that emerges from the village of Maidstone that was associated with hop production.  According to a report from the late 1720s, submitted to the Treasury Board, one-third of the English hop acreage was situated in Kent. In the 1780s, George Bishop started production of his distillery business. He too learned the art from another country. He had a similar operation in Holland from where he learned the art of distilling Schiedam Genever (Dutch Gin). Genever has been distilled in the city of Schiedam for hundreds of years and is world-renowned to this day. Hasted reports that the operation was of such a scale that it accommodated seven hundred pigs, fed on the waste products. (Armstrong, 1995) This is exactly the size operation that one would expect to supply the navy and English East Indian Company with live pigs on a regular basis.

There is one more clue that can narrow our options down. Samuel Lewes (1831) wrote in his A Topographical Dictionary of England that “the Hogs of East Kent are of various sorts, the smaller of which are those that have been intermingled with the Chinese breed : many pigs are reared in this district, and having been fed on the corn stubbles for the butchers, are killed in the autumn for roasting pork. In the western part of the county are some of the large Berkshire breed. Many hogs are fed on acorns in the woods of the Weald, and fattened on corn in the winter.” Maidstone is in East Kent which means that it falls in the category of “Hogs of various sorts, the smaller of which are those that have been intermingled with the Chinese breed.” Of course, we know that this is not an absolute distinction and that George Bishop could have raised Berkshires, but the general description by Lewes fits the Kolbroek and Kune Kune profile nicely.

The Village Pig

The Village Pig

Despite the fact that there were clearly large pig farmers in Kent in the 1700s and 1800s, it is still noteworthy that the village pig was commonplace in England during these centuries. The pigs that were predominantly present in England, as was the case in Kent, was the village pig. The English lagged behind in large scale, industrial pig farming until early in the 1900s. Wage-dependence grew but before this time, the economy of self-sufficiency prevailed with rural households provided for most of their own needs. The pig was central to this state of affairs. William Marshall wrote in the 1790s “during the spring and summer months, every labourer, who has industry, frugality, and convenience sufficient, to keep a pig, is seen carrying home, in the evening, as he returns from his labour, a bundle of ‘Hog Weed’; – namely, the heracleum sphondylium, or crow parsnep; which is here well known to be a nutritive food of swine. Children, too, are sent out, to collect it, in by roads, and on hedge banks.” (Marshall, 1798)

The keeping of at least one or two pigs per household was commonplace in the 1700s and 1800s England. One thousand three hundred rural households were surveyed in 1837 to 1838 in Hertfordshire, Essex, and Norfolk and it was discovered that around 38% kept at least one pig. (Boys, 1805) For the most part, the cottagers did not breed their own pigs but bought the piglets and raised them. It is difficult to know exactly how many village pigs were in England at this time but estimates set the numbers at between half a million and a million cottage pigs in late Victorian England. (Salisbury, 1822)

How to feed these animals was another question. George Stuart wrote in the mid-1800s that “most people kept pigs, and made a practice of opening the pig-sties every morning and letting the occupants out into the village street for the day.  There can hardly have been any pretty front gardens. Pigs browsed on the grass that ew by the open drain.” (Kightly, 1984)

Most of the feed, however, came from the owner. One cottager from Hertfordshire describes it as follows. “The water in which food had been cooked, and also that in which plates and dishes had been washed, formed a very valuable asset for the pig keeper, and was accordingly put in a wooden vessel called ‘the pig tub’. . . Those cottagers that kept a pig or pigs had their own tub near the back door; others put their wash (so termed) into a common pig tub provided by a neighbouring pig keeper, who each night came around with yoke and pails to collect same.  At the killing, a portion of the liver or some part of the offal was given by the keeper to each of the cottage women who had contributed to the wash tub, as a recompense for the same.” (Grey, 1935)  I mention this because it speaks to how the animals were being kept, a practice that would have been brought to the Cape of Good Hope by the English settlers.

Feed was supplemented by various other food sources such as potatoes and even hop that was planted specifically for the pigs. There are many delightful accounts of the importance of the cottage pig to the social structure of England in the 1700s and 1800s. Visitors would inquire as to the health of the family pig in the same way they would about the health of the kids. Parents who wrote letters to kids would include comments on the welfare of the pigs in every letter.  It is fair to say that the pig took on a role in English life that became closet to that of a pet than a farm animal. After church, visitors would invariably stop and spend some time at the pigsty where they would scratch the animals back and talk to them before they would enter the house and greet the occupants. All this to say that the pig played a role in England far more important than simply a source of bacon and lard. A distinction started to emerge in my mind between commercial operations in pig husbandry and bacon production and small scale cottage pig raising and the production of home-cured hams, bacon, and sausages. The two disciplines are in reality far removed even though the same animal is the subject and the similar spices and salts are used in curing.  This distinction would stay with me. As far as my work is concerned, it focuses on large commercial operations and not on a small scale operation.

C & T Harris and their drive for Lean Pigs

When I was back at Harris, John told me that there is an unceasing attempt by all Wiltshire pig producers to produce lean pigs. This was driven by his firm’s preference to buy such animals. They have been offering a premium to farmers for medium-sized pigs. It is reported that the percentage of lean pigs sent to the Calne market in Wiltshire has almost doubled. (Yearbook of Agriculture, 1895)

Finally

Not all these facts were discussed in Liverpool, but Mike took us through most of it. Minette loved the discussion. By the time Michael was done, we had four dining room tables around us with photos and bits of scrap paper scattered across the phots and on two more tables where I laid out my notes. I suggested that Minette and Mike make their way to the bar area so long and get drinks while I sit for a few minutes to gather my thoughts and complete my notes.

I thought that by now I learned a lot about bacon, but the discussion this morning taught me that I have only begun.  The interconnectedness of it all stunned me. The pig is one of the easiest and most profitable ways to convert corn and maize into animal protein. The link between this fact and the need to feed an ever-increasing world population stunned me. Not only is the preservation of the meat of supreme importance, but the art of manipulating what nature has given us is the real start of the journey to the best bacon on earth!

I recalled a discussion with John Harris and how they breed bacon pigs with long loins and little fat for bacon as opposed to short, far pigs which they call lard-pigs for the production of hams and lard. The Kolbroek pigs that Oupa Eben farmed back in South Africa are clearly lard pigs and the Berkshire and the whites and blacks are being bred as bacon pigs.  It all fascinated me tremendously.

It made me realise that life must be lived like that – with ample interconnections we are able to engineer a grand tapestry! We can indeed fall in love with life and when our work and our passion are the same – it is the condiments to a complete life that is lived well in every area.  My Minette, bacon, the mountains, the different lands and customs and peoples of this bountiful earth all unite in my heart and soul it becomes the gift from an amazing universe we exist in. I smiled when I walked over to the bar area and thought to myself that bacon is truly connected to the art of living!

Lots of love from Liverpool!

Your Dad and Minette

---

Further Reading

Also refer Chapter 10.02: C & T Harris in New Zealand and other amazing tales where I take up the similarities between the Kolbroek and the Kune Kune.

Chapter 03: Kolbroek where the story of the link with the pigs from Gravesend (Kent) is first proposed.

In Search of the Origins of the Kolbroek

Kolbroek – Chinese, New Zealand, and English Connections

The Old and the New Pig Breeds

---

---

(c) eben van tonder

“Bacon & the art of living” in bookform
Stay in touch

Like our Facebook page and see the next post. Like, share, comment, contribute!

Bacon and the art of living

Promote your Page too

---

Notes

(1) Oscar and I arrived at the Royal Waterloo Hotel on  18 March 2012.  Colin Turner from Dantech made the booking.

(2)  There is a popular hiking trail called the Wealdway which is from the Southern Coast to Gravesend, crossing the Weald.

 

References

Armstrong, A (Ed.).  1995. The Economy of Kent, 1640-1914. Boydell Press.

Aslet, C..  2010. Villages of Britain: The Five Hundred Villages that Made the Countryside.  Bloomsbury.

Boys, J..  1805. General View of the Agriculture of the County of Kent.  2nd edition.

Collins, E. J. T.. 1887. The Agrarian History of Wales, vol. 1; vol. 7. Cambridge University Press, 2000, p560.

DANIEL DEFOE Ultimate Collection: 50+ Adventure Classics, Pirate Tales & Historical Novels – Including Biographies, Historical Works, Travel Sketches, Poems & Essays (Illustrated), Robinson Crusoe, The History of the Pirates, Captain Singleton, Memoirs of a Cavalier, A Journal of the Plague Year, Moll Flanders, Roxana, The History of the Devil, The King of Pirates and many more. From Letter IV Containing a Description of the North Shore of the Counties of Cornwall, and Devon, and Some Parts of Somersetshire, Wiltshire, Dorsetshire, Gloucestershire, Buckinghamshire and Berkshire. 1761.  Also refer, A Tour Thro’ the Whole Island of Great Britain: Divided Into Circuits Or Journies. Containing, I. A Description of the Principal Cities By a Gentleman.  December 31, 1760 

Grey, E..  1935. Cottage Life in a Hertfordshire Village.

Harris, J..  c 1870.  Harris on the pig. Breeding, rearing, management, and improvement.  New York, Orange Judd, and company

Kightly, C..  1984. Country Voices:  Life and Lore in Farm and Village.

Kitchen, F..  1940.  Brother to the Ox: The Autobiography of a Farm Labourer.

Lewis, S.. 1831. A Topographical Dictionary of England. S. Lewis & Co.

Marshall, W..  1798.  The Rural Economy of the Southern Countries (2 vol)

Mayhew, M..  1981. The Morning Chronicle Survey of Labour and the Poor, The Metropolitan Districts Volume 3. In the years 1849 and 1850, Henry Mayhew was the metropolitan correspondent of the Morning Chronicle in its national survey of labour and the poor. Only about a third of his Morning Chronicle material was included in his later and better known, publication, London Labour and the London Poor.  First published in 1981, this series of six volumes constitutes Henry Mayhew’s complete Morning Chronicle survey, in the sequence in which it was originally written in 1849 and 1850.

Salisbury, W..  1822.  The Cottager’s Agricultural Companion.

Sinclair, J. (ed).  1897.  Pigs Breeds and Management. Vinton and Co, London

Tunick MH (2008). “Whey Protein Production and Utilization.” (abstract). In Onwulata CI, Huth PJ (eds.). Whey processing, functionality and health benefits. Ames, Iowa: Blackwell Publishing; IFT Press. pp. 1–13.

White, G..  1977.  The Natural History of Selborne. Penguin. From letters in 1775.

Wilkinson, p. R..  1933.  Thesaurus of Traditional English Metaphors.

Yearbook of Agriculture, 1895; p 16.

A Maori Proverb from Maori lore, 1904, by Izett, James (https://archive.org/deta…/maoriloretraditi00izetuoft/page/n3)

Photos

Old photos from Liverpool

-Liverpool, history, Liverpool-history-l22-waterloo-royal-hotel-c1900
Find this Pin and
-Waterloo Station 1907;
-Waterloo beach scene, circa 1906;
-Picnic on Waterloo seafront on Easter Sunday – undated
– photos from our stay on 18 March 2012

From: https://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/…/photos-show-waterloo-thro…

Old Hotel photo from pinterest

Other photos, taken by Eben

Pig photos from

Pigs Breeds and Management
Edited by James Sinclair
Vinton and Co, London
1897

Harris on the pig. Breeding, rearing, management, and improvement
by Harris, Joseph
New York, Orange Judd, and company
c 1870